The Reason We Need to Change

We all want to minimise the amount of waste we are sending to landfill and want the collection service to have minimal environmental impact by reducing the number of vehicle used and the distance travelled.

Stratford District Council acts as the collection authority for your waste, but the final disposal is organised by Warwickshire County Council and paid for through residents Council Tax, and the following text is from the Warwickshire Municipal Waste Management Strategy which outlines some of the financial reasons for changing the way we collect and dispose of our waste.

Why can't we carry on land filling our waste?

Historically, there has been an abundance of landfill in the UK and particularly in Warwickshire due to its high number of mineral quarries. This has meant that landfill
has been a cheap and convenient way of managing waste. However, by sending waste materials to landfill we are limiting the potential for reuse, recycling and
recovery of valuable resources. We are also running out of landfill space. In a study
carried out by the Environment Agency in 2001, it was estimated that we had just over seven years landfill capacity left in Warwickshire10. This is clearly a problem as it is becoming increasingly difficult to find locations for new sites, which have to comply with strict environmental operating standards.

Landfill tax

As well as being a convenient method of waste disposal, landfill has also been very cheap compared to other forms of waste treatment and disposal. In 1996 the
landfill tax regulations were introduced to encourage a shift in disposal away from landfill.

The current rate of tax (2005/06) is £18; the tax will continue to rise by £3 every year until it reaches a medium to long-term rate of £35 per tonne. The payment of tax is in addition to the gate fee paid per tonne to dispose of waste. This is also set to increase as available landfill capacity decreases.

Landfill diversion targets

As well as reducing capacity and increasing costs, we have been set challenging targets by the EU and UK to reduce the amount of waste, particularly biodegradable municipal waste that we can dispose of to landfill. The targets have been set in the EU Landfill Directive in an attempt to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases from landfill. All these contributing factors mean that it is no longer viable to use landfill as our main method of disposal.

What happens if we 'Do nothing' and carry on land filling our waste?

If we make no attempt to reduce the amount of waste, particularly biodegradable waste that we send to landfill, we will not meet our recycling or landfill diversion targets. If we fail to meet our landfill diversion targets and continue to landfill over and above our specified annual allowances we will face substantial fines. We will be fined by the Government £150 for every tonne of waste that we landfill over our permitted allowances. If Warwickshire exceeds its allowances in one of the three EU target years (2010, 2013, 2020) there is the potential for even greater fines.

The Government has stated that if in a target year an authority exceeds its allowances and as a result is responsible for England missing its overall target, the
Government may pass on a proportion of the EU fine onto the breaching authority. It is anticipated that the EU fine will be in the region of £300,000 per day until
the breach is rectified. Clearly, this would have very serious financial implications for any authority that exceeds its allowances.

It has been estimated that if we 'do nothing' and fail to meet our diversion targets, we could face fines in the region of £15 million a year in an EU target year!